On Teaching Courage
By ALFRED ADLER, M. D.
Translated by W. Béran Wolfe, M.D., and B. S. Knauer
IT is not easy to formulate an educational aim which is completely free of misunderstanding and delusion. Once a goal is assumed, it should be stated so clearly that false steps and erroneous ideas are clearly excluded.
For one thing, an educational goal should be free of the taint of religious, national, or social prejudices, for despite the fact that they seem of great value to the educator, extraneous educational ideals, although not objectionable in themselves, frequently leave permanent undesirable impressions upon the child. The average teacher not only has preconceived ideas of the goal of education, but resorts to all manner of dogmas to support his thesis. An educational point of view should be severely tested before it is adopted. And in adopting a new point of view in education an agreement as to the method of procedure, based either upon scientific research, or at least on sound common sense, is highly desirable.
The outstanding defect of our present educational system is its lack of consideration for youth. It creates two distinct classes, a ruling class, and a ruled class. But a desirable system of education would facilitate the development of retarded children, rather than address itself to the task of fostering seemingly talented children. The "test" method of discovering latent as well as artificially evident (and much over-rated) talent has proven of no practical value. It is far more important to know that any child can be stimulated to greater accomplishments if his teaching is thorough.
If we exclude feebleminded children from our discussion, the choice of the aim of education should present few difficult problems. It seems natural that the educational ideal ought to be universal in scope. Its purpose must be to stimulate thought, and its scope must be broad enough to enable every child to develop into a socially useful individual.
Every educator should realize the importance of correct intellectual, moral and physical training, as the opportunities for such development are all too limited at present. That child who is liberated from the superstitious belief in the divinely marked boundaries of talent and lack of talent, has already taken a great step in the direction of future validity. Traditional and emotional mottoes are valueless in education.
There is a primary need for understanding between teacher and pupil. The purpose of this understanding is the creation of self-confidence in the child, and it must be fostered by careful efforts on the part of the teacher. Only when it exists can we expect that courage and self-confidence, the fundamentals of all creative and useful work, can result. I feel that methods of individual psychology establish the proper understanding between pupil and teacher, because they are not only highly constructive but offer so many opportunities for the development of a strong bond between the pupil and the cosmos, and between the pupil and his fellows.
As soon as a child's work appears useless to him, his self-esteem vanishes, and he develops an inferiority complex. The inferiority complex results from meeting with constant social contradiction, and it jeopardizes the child's own life. When the pupil is burdened with an inferiority complex he must pay the price exacted for the violation of the common-sense logic of coöperative social life. Consequently life becomes more burdensome to him as his education progresses, rather than easier as he has a right to expect. In the end the pupil feels isolated from society, and acts as if he were a stranger in an enemy country.
The only worth-while achievements of man are those which are socially useful. When a child lacks interest in his fellows it is always because he is afraid that he is incapable of making himself useful. Modern psychology shows that the individual who has lost hope resorts to all manner of tricks which have no relation to reality, but are superficially capable of bolstering his self-esteem. The child does not realize that the consolation he derives from his tricks, aside from its temporary utility as a stop-gap, is artificial and illogical.
Courage and self-esteem, twin constructive factors, are the natural consequences of a well-developed social feeling. As long as a child believes he has a chance for progress and that the way toward social utility is open to him, it will never occur to him to seek socially futile means of establishing his validity. The birth of social courage in the soul of the child occurs when he realizes his own constructive social power. Every child deserves the opportunity to satisfy his desire for useful activity and this desire must be fostered by a thorough understanding. It is false pedagogy to hinder the child's development by believing that bad heredity or organic incapabilities preclude further development.
There can, therefore, be but a single goal of education, and that—education to courage. This has been my standpoint in formulating individual psychology, which has not only pointed the way but developed a technique for teaching courage. We find among the products of our schools spoiled children, "nervous" children, criminals, prostitutes, and candidates for suicide. These unhappy end-results characterize any system of education which does not vouchsafe children the feeling that they can achieve social usefulness and social approval. Moreover, when these end-results occur we may deduce that the educational system did not give its subjects the opportunity to feel themselves part of the larger social scheme. A brief glimpse into their lives will reveal that the criminal, the prostitute, the suicide, the "nervous" or spoiled child came into conflict with society as soon as he was sidetracked from a life of social utility. There can be but one method of redemption for such individuals: reconciliation with their social group by training them to courage, and by teaching them to feel that they are capable of gaining social approbation. So long as these individuals feel themselves outlawed from the social group, there is no hope for them.
Fuente: Alfred Adler, «On Teaching Courage», traducción inglesa de W. Béran Wolfe y B. S. Knauer, The Survey (Survey Graphic number) 61 (1928), n.º 4 (15 de noviembre), págs. 241-242. Transcripción a partir del número digitalizado en archive.org (survey-1897_1928-11-15_61_4), con el OCR de la plataforma corregido sobre la imagen de las páginas. Se omite el recuadro introductorio de la redacción (reproducido en un comentario del código). Es la versión inglesa de «Die Erziehung zum Mut» (1927; Id AA1927-04). Los comentarios p. n del código marcan el comienzo de cada página impresa.